Facebook keeps earning despite data privacy scandal

Facebook has reported first quarter revenue of $11.96 billion, up 49% from last year despite the fallout from a scandal that saw data from 87 million of its users shared with Cambridge Analytica.

The scandal, at least for now, hasn’t resulted in any significant loss in users for the California-based social media giant. Daily active users were 1.45 billion, on average, for March 2018, an increase of 13% year-on-year. Monthly active users were 2.20 billion as of 31 March, also a year-on-year increase of 13%.

Facebook reported cash reserves of $43.96 billion at the end of Q1 with capital expenditure for the period hitting $2.81 billion. Mobile advertising revenue on the network represented about 91% of ad revenue for Q1, up from around 85% in Q1, 2017.

The leak also included 311,127 users of the social media network in Australia.

Facebook’s shares rose 6.8% in after-hours trading to $170.56. This is still below the $195.32 peak that the social media organisation hit in January.

Facebook’s under fire chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said on Thursday: “Despite facing important challenges, our community and business are off to a strong start in 2018. We are taking a broader view of our responsibility and investing to make sure our services are used for good.

“But we also need to keep building new tools to help people connect, strengthen our communities and bring the world closer together.”

Early this month, Zuckerberg fended off questions from US senators about how the organisation could be regulated more closely.